Joseph Romm
Joseph Romm is one of the world's leading experts on clean energy technologies. He is author of the new book, "The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate" (Island Press, 2004), which has been referenced or reviewed by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, Scientific American, salon.com, wired.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News.
Romm was Acting Assistant Secretary at DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during 1997 and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from August 1995 though June 1998. In that capacity, he helped manage the largest program in the world for helping businesses develop and use advanced clean energy and distributed generation (DG) technologies to cut costs, increase reliability, and reduce pollution: $1 billion aimed at the industrial, utility, transportation, and buildings sectors.
The program is the lead federal agency for developing technologies such as PEM fuel cells, microturbines, advanced cogeneration, superconductivity, building controls, photovoltaics and other renewables, and hydrogen production and storage. Romm was in charge of technology analysis for the Office. Romm initiated, supervised, and publicized a comprehensive technical analysis by five national laboratories of the energy technologies best able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions cost-effectively, "The Five Lab Study."
Romm is executive director and founder of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions-a one stop shop helping businesses and states adopt high-leverage strategies for saving energy and cutting pollution (www.cool-companies.org). Romm is also a principal with the Capital E Group, a premier provider of strategic consulting, technology assessment, and sustainable design services for fuel cells and other clean energy technologies.
Romm consults with businesses such as IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Collins Pine, Nike, and Timberland on energy technology and environmental strategy. He is author of the first book to benchmark corporate best practices for using advanced energy technologies including fuel cells to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Cool Companies: How the Best Businesses Boost Profits and Productivity By Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T.
